Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2015 08:51:03 -0700
Reply-To: Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: The Vanagon cooling system.. it's counterintuitive.. (long post)
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My Vanagon's cooling system has fooled me before... Cool air coming from
the heater? ....that turns out to be one of the Vanagon symptoms of coolant
loss...Who'd a thunk that, if you weren't familiar with Vanagons?
....When I first got my '84 and did my normal new-to-me vehicle servicing,
which includes new coolant, I was 'fooled' as I watched my temperature
gauge swing around, regardless of the ambient air temp or the load on the
motor....Putting my hand down into the air coming from the heater, it felt
cool, which I figured meant "Ok, something wonky with the temperature gauge
or with the gauge the wiring, but the motor can't really be hot if the
heater is blowing only warmish air...." That mistaken thinking led to my
blowing a headgasket (VW inline gas motor) after driving the van around
for a few months with a big air bubble in the cooling system...
I've since become a more knowledgeable Vanagon guy. The P.O. who did
the original inline/diesel style gas motor conversion in my van was not
very meticulous with his work....the Coolant Level light wasn't working
properly, either, when I got the van, and I have never managed to make it
do so (admittedly, I'm poor with fiddly wiring problems) despite trying to
make it work a few times.
Instead of depending just on 30-yr old dash warning lights,(and spending
more hours figuring out how to make it work properly) I've installed some
instruments to actually tell me what is going on inside the motor....an oil
pressure and an oil temperature gauge...Blinky warning lights, buzzers and
OBD code readers are all good...when they work properly, every time, but
over the years I've wasted a lot of time and money trying to fix
'indicated' problems that weren't really there..."faulty indications"...
So I monitor my gauges, though I may make the time, after yesterday's
scary coolant "incident", to give another try at making the Coolant Level
blinky light on my dash function..
..I figured (correctly, it turns out) that if I ever did lose my coolant or
start to overheat the motor, I would see it in the readings from my
redundant (now) gauges, especially the oil-related ones...Well, I did, and
I did...Scary, though...
I'd just topped out climbing a steep and winding pass from Antelope,
Or..(Home of the Bag One, the Yogi who collected Rolls Royces, had a cult
community there and almost took over that county before being sent
packing) to Shaniko, Or...an almost ghost town on the high desert plateau.
As is my habit, I glanced at the gauges and "Whoa!" the oil pressure was
down to 40 psi,(from it's usual reading at speed of about 65psi) the oil
temp was at 300f (normal is ~180f) and the coolant temp gauge was not
reading where it almost always does (though is was NOT reading super hot.
and it never did till I eventually refilled the cooling system). So after
a panic stop, unloading my bicycles and sailboards to get at the motor...
and some roadside diagnostics...(an ice cold radiator...no steady idle and
very rough running from the motor...very hot oil smell when I opened the
engine lid.) I thought "Crap, this high mileage inline gas motor finally
blew up, or something" After extensive phone time trying to arrange a
flatbed...(I was almost 60 miles from the nearest tow service) I gave it
"one more try" and she started right up, running normally and sounding just
fine.. No bad smoke, no awful knocking, no puddle of oil under...(I
surmise the rough running was because the Temp II sensor was also
"uncovered")....So I topped up the coolant tank and discovered a slight
coolant dripping at the motor end...The hose to the oil/coolant exchanger
has a tiny pinhole..
Anyhow, the oil gauges worked, saved me..... though if I had only my
coolant temperature gauge I would now still be sitting in Shaniko ghost
town with a blown motor.......
Wonder why the VW engineers didn't figure out a better place for the
coolant temp gauge sensor so that when your van begins to heat up from low
coolant or an air lock in the cooling system the gauge temperature gauge
actually still shows it? Instead, I guess, they just added on that
additional system...I've encountered similar 'fixes' on some of my other
Germanic vehicles...
long post, sorry...but there's a lot of things that happen in Vanagons
that aren't common in other type of vehicles...and ...Gauges are good!
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